Chocolate Orange Truffles

Happy New Year! I spent my New Year’s Eve in Edinburgh with my friends Catriona and Samantha, dancing the year away at a Scottish ceilidh dance. And yes, I ate all the haggis. I’ve written all about my visit to Edinburgh on my travel blog here.

Now I’m back home in Bergen and I just took down the Christmas decorations in my apartment, but I did want to share one last recipe from my Christmas baking, though it’s not particularly Christmasy. And that’s good news, because I’m definitely going to want to make these more often than just at Christmastime.

This was an accidental recipe I made after part of another cookie recipe didn’t work out. And yet these might actually have been my favorite thing I made this Christmas, and I definitely plan on making them again soon! Isn’t it funny how that happens?

The first batch of chocolate cream I made for the Sarah Bernhardt cookies used dark chocolate and orange peel. When I tasted it I decided it wasn’t quite right for the cookies (I went for a milk chocolate cream in the end) but it was still delicious, so I wanted to find a way to use it. I also refuse to ever throw away food, especially when it’s as delicious as this chocolate cream. So I decided to make some dark chocolate orange truffles!

Chocolate truffles are quite easy to make, they’re great for gifts, and they taste so much better than store bought truffles. Though my dad did think that I had bought these, so maybe that’s not actually true?

I didn’t take many photos while making these orange chocolate truffles because I didn’t originally plan on sharing this recipe, but then the truffles were so delicious I just had to share. I also wanted to be sure to document this recipe so that I could make them again, and again and again.

I loved making chocolate truffles as a teenager, so making these really brought me back.

The orange flavoring in these truffles comes from the orange peel, but you could also switch the orange peel out for other flavors instead – there are so many possibilities here.

The trickiest part of making these is rolling the truffles into balls, not because it’s difficult but because it can get pretty messy. You’ll want to keep the chocolate cream in the fridge until right before rolling, so the chocolate doesn’t melt in your hands as quickly. I also patted my hands with cocoa powder to keep them dry, and then I rinsed the chocolate off my hands whenever they got too messy.

You can of course decorate these however you wish. I simply drizzled them with melted white chocolate. I melted the chocolate and put it in a small plastic bag and cut a hole at the tip for drizzling. It’s super easy, but I think makes the truffles look fancier.

You can switch the recipe from US measurements to metric by clicking from “US Customary” to “Metric” under Ingredients.